40 cancer drugs to come under price regulation (6/12/11)

NEW DELHI, 6 DEC: Prices of some cancer medicines may come down sooner than expected, providing relief to India's over 20 lakh cancer patients. The government has identified 40 drugs used to treat cancer whose prices will be regulated under the new drug pricing policy. But it plans to include some of these in the list of drugs whose prices are already fixed by government, instead of waiting for the new pricing policy to be finalised. "If the cabinet does not meet for some reason, the finalisation of the policy may take time . At least, the prices of expensive cancer drugs can be brought under price control without delay," minister of state for chemicals and fertilizers Srikant Jena told ET. The junior minister said price regulator National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has already sought clarifications from the department of pharmaceuticals (DoP) on the matter. Though he did not specify a time, Jena said it "will happen soon." Once these medicines are included among the list of drugs whose prices are capped, drug price regulator NPPA can fix their retail prices. At present, the government fixes the price of 74 drugs. Top drug makers in the country including Ranbaxy Laboratories, Sun Pharma, Cipla, Dr Reddy's Laboratories , Roche and Novartis AG market cancer drugs in the country. Many of them, mostly the imported ones, are expensive. Novartis' cancer drug Glivec costs Rs 1,20,000 for a monthly dose. NPPA will examine which of these cancer drugs fulfil the necessary criterion such as turnover and number of players in market to be included in the existing list of drugs under price control, a senior official in the DoP said. In October, DoP released the draft national pharmaceutical pricing policy, which proposes to bring all 348 essential drugs and their combinations under price control. The ceiling price of the drugs, both local and imported, will be the average price of the three top-selling brands in the segment. But this policy has been in the works for eight years and a court case may delay it even further. The NGO, which moved the Supreme Court and forced the government to bring all essential medicines under price control, last month went to the apex court again, objecting to the pricing formula in the proposed policy on the ground that it legitimises overpricing and justifies super profits.

Economic Times